Its 90 degrees in the shade...

so lets talk about wool socks!  I know that makes no sense at all but since I knit socks all year round and I have a finished pair to show I want to talk about them.

This is the pair I knit with Opal yarn called Bootsfahrt... boots fart...LOL... ok I know it means boat trip in German but come on who doesn't love a good fart joke? Nice colors and nice yarn to knit with...easy care... toss into the washer and the dryer and wears like iron... gotta love it.

And then there is this lonely sock in the missing man formation...

This is Blue Moon Socks that Rock in the colorway A Room without a Roof... like from the Pharrell song "Happy"... it makes me happy! Now I know I could the popular fish lips heel and it would keep those stripes uninterrupted but then I wouldn't get that wonderful pooling around the ankle...that's what makes me really really HAPPY!! I wish the whole sock would pool. So many people do everything they can to keep the yarn from pooling and I would do everything I could to make it pool if I knew any tricks.

I've gushed over Blue Moon Yarn before and my love affair continues unabated, and today as I was putting this post together I saw that they had their Rare Gems listed for sale. oooooohhhhhh... I've always wanted some to this yarn and thought you only could snag it at a yarn show...so since this rare opportunity presented itself to me, I ordered some. And now that I know my order has been safely placed I will graciously share this info with you... aren't I wonderful? You can click here to see what I'm talking about.   Ok ok ... wonderful with a side order of snarky and selfish, but where Blue Moon yarn in concerned I can't help myself.

And since I always have a complaint about the weather I'm want to share that my whining about all the dreary, rainy days had some validity. In the past 30 days Cincinnati has had over 10 inches of rain...the most rainfall in 144 years over that 30 day span. Local news story here.  No wonder there is mold on the bottom of my trash cans. Mother Nature is now balancing that out with temperatures in the upper 90's the next couple of days giving me more weather to fret about... I think this is a sign of getting old and crabby... I think I'll do well in those categories...LOL!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

happy stitching and knitting!
carol fun

Sudoku in the checkout lane...

Well it certainly took me longer to get to the checkout with my Bar Code quilt than I anticipated. Turns out I had cut and sewn several of the low volume strips the wrong width, and I had to take them out, and trim them down, and then sew them back it...sheesh. It was like standing in the express checkout line behind someone with 99 items in their cart...it took FOREVER!

Finally finished...yeah!!! Now along with dealing with the wrong width strips, as I was sewing the rows together I kept seeing patterns I didn't like. It ended up being a big Sudoku... I didn't want the same color to appear in the same row either horizontally or vertically. I kept moving a block here, a block there... no now there are two pinks in the same row...no that puts two greens in the same column... wait a minute if I switch the blue block with the black block... no that doesn't work either...arghh!! In the end the best I could do was that the same color does not appear in any horizontal row, and the same color only appears in one vertical row. At least I think that's what I have... and I can't do Sudoku worth a darn.  Perhaps I could have gotten it to work if I hadn't come to this realization before I had 4 of the 6 rows sewn together and I refused to unsew anything.  I'm anal, OCD, neurotic, ADHD and stubborn...I'm a great big package of crazy all tied up in a colorful binding...LOL!

And speaking of colorful, check out this fabric I found for the binding..

It is a Benartex KANVAS fabric from Maria Kalinowski. Isn't this fabulous? I bought the last 2 yds on the bolt from Sew-A-Lot in Centerville Ohio. This is a binding I know will  find its way onto lots of my quilts.

Here's an idea of how it will look on the finished quilt...

Now to get the back made and send this off to the my long arm gal, Terry.

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced today.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Almost to the checkout...

All the blocks are finished and they've been arranged and rearranged and my Bar Code quilt is almost done and ready for checkout.

I got the idea for this quilt here from Kvilstina's blog. It was a bee block that totally captivated me. Now I did get sidetracked there for a bit with the novelty Charming Stars but I'm happy to have this one almost done.  The bottom 3 rows are sewn to each other ... the next row up is ready to be added and the last 2 rows need to be sewn to each other.

It was fun to include novelty prints in these blocks both in the color portions and the low volume portions.

I like smiling lady bugs and the pink and white poodles and the bit of the irons and the chicken wire in this block.

And this lime green block has monkeys and silverware and one of those Day of the Dead guys fiddling away.

And this red block contains lots of stuff I love... I love the little bluebird with a heart in his beak, and those goofy faces in the red fabric and those mustaches.  Mustaches have been a big "thing" in the past year or two ,and no more so than they are right now in my fair city, Cincinnati. They are playing the Major League Baseball All-Star game tomorrow night at Great American Ball Park, if Mother Nature permits. We've had rainy weather on and off over the weekend and today we had a wicked storm. I was outside trying to take down my flag and I can't remember seeing such dark ominous clouds. The wind was something like 40mph and it blew all my flower pots off of the railing of my porch, pretty much mashing everything in them. A trip to the nursery will be in order tomorrow.

Anyway back to the mustaches... I know you are totally lost as to where I was going ... me too... the Cincinnati Reds were the first professional baseball team and back when they started in 1866 most of the players sported mustaches. The city of Cincinnati has played off of this theme and we have benches all over town that look like mustaches...

This one is in front of City Hall where my older son works. But the biggest mustache may be this one...

It was just serendipity that we have a building that can be morphed into an old time-y baseball player we call Mr. Redleg.

So cross your fingers and say a prayer that Mother Nature lets them get in the game tomorrow night. I'll be watching and stitching. I know it will be a good game because it is one my beloved Cincinnati Reds can't lose... as they aren't playing...which is a good thing as this is getting to be a very long depressing season... they are 8 games under .500 and totally out of the running for anything post season... good thing there is always next year!

happy stitching-
carol fun

A bittersweet Sunday...

Ahh... yesterday was lovely... there was this big ball of light in the sky...I think they call it the sun...today...its no where to be found...ugh! We've had a couple of rainy weeks here in southwestern Ohio and the forecast is for more of the same. Wish we could ship some of the rain to the west coast, as this pattern of rainy, dreary days makes me one lethargic pile of plump. I have been doing some cross stitch but I can't show it. I'm working on the May Day Sampler Mystery SAL on the Facebook group Prim Stitchers Society. The rules are you can show any sneak peeks and it has to be finished August 1. I'm making pretty good progress and I'm motivated by the fact that I have several new projects taunting me from the table next to my stitching chair that want to be stitched...NOW!!!! They are kitted up and ready to roll...wish I could stitch faster.

So instead of work in progress I want to share a framed finish. Ta-dah!!! This is Blackbird Designs Bittersweet September that I received from Dyeing to Stitch's Ladies Prim Society.

Bev at Joann's did a lovely job on this one too. I added a gold filet again but a simpler one as it suited this frame better. I love that in addition to a great border (I love when the sides are similar yet different), this piece also had an alphabet. I personalized it by stitching the C and the N in a different color of floss as they are my sons' initials.

There have been two releases from the Ladies Prim Society by Blackbird Designs called Bittersweet something or other.

In fact as I recall both of these were originally called Bittersweet September but when the realized they had two charts with the same name they changed the second one to Bittersweet Lane... either way they are both pretty little pieces.

So on another gloomy day I will sit and stitch some more, at least that will brighten my outlook until the sun appears again...boy I hope it is soon.

I'll be linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday on Kathy's Quilts and with Vintage Embroidery Monday on Super Mom - No Cape tomorrow.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Stars in my eyes...

I've stars in my eyes and on my design wall. I made 3 more of the Charming Star blocks with my novelty fabrics and I think this is all the blocks I'm going to make for this quilt. First up I made one in shades of dark red/burgundy...

I found some more Thomas the Tank Engine fabric and I think the green engine is Percy. My older son adored TTE and use to quiz me as to the color and the number of each engine... I use to have them all memorized but it is long gone now. Next is a sled and mittens and assorted snow gear, movie memorabilia, the United States flag which I now see I put in sideways (I'll fix that today), crazy cats, cars with Christmas trees strapped to their roofs, letters include the initials of my son and daughter-in- law, and dog tags... quite a mix of stuff.

Then I put together a dark green block...

I got this zippers from an American Jane collection, little billiard balls, a lucky pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, little cardinals, a tennis player, pine cones, ornaments and Santa. If you enlarge the picture you will see the the Santa in the middle is only wearing boxer shorts... honestly who thinks of this stuff?  I find it hilarious, as most people aren't going to see that unless I point it out.

And finally a dark brown block... I'm calling this block my homage to Debbie Mumm. This is the last block I did and I only had 2 novelty fabrics with brown backgrounds in my novelties pile. I got to thinking what else my be lurking in my stash. I have my own system for organizing my fabrics and all my Debbie Mumm fabrics are in bins in a little root cellar off of my sewing room. I stored them that way because when I make a quilt with Debbie Mumm fabrics I always end up using just her designs, as the fabric colors just go together so well, I've been collecting Debbie Mumm fabric for about 20 years, and I am particularly fond of the older stuff she did.

In this brown block, 5 of the eight fabrics are Debbie Mumm...

the upper left corner is little chefs by Debbie Mumm, next is cute cats, M&M's (I only had a little bit of this one), polka dot cows which are closely related to polka dot chickens dontcha know...LOL, and all the rest of these are Debbie Mumm fabrics... the man in the moon wearing a mask, tuna and cat food cans, pretty birds and little sunflowers.

And here are two possible layouts of 12 of the blocks which would make a nice size lap quilt about 50" X 66" without sashing. First up the girl version with the pink princess-y block...

or the boy version without the pink princess-y block.

I like them both. so I think this is a successful start on a quilt for my yet to be conceived grandchild.

Now you would think that working with all these novelties would have gotten this out of my system for now... but you'd be wrong. In pawing through all my Debbie Mumm fabrics I've gotten a itch to do Charming Star novelty print quilt using just my Debbie Mumm fabrics. I envision it as a quilt for my inner child, not any yet to be conceived grandchild. Stay tuned to see where this leads. First I need to re-organize my novelties stash as it is strewn all over my sewing room, and I need to finish up the Bar Code quilt and I need to get a binding on my APQ Go 4 It quilt that I just got back from Terry my long arm quilter.  It looks so good! I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever run out of quilts to make!

Hoping to link up with Freshly Pieced today...

happy stitching-
carol fun

I spy with my little eye...

a bunch of crazy things...LOL! I now have 10 blocks made all using different novelty prints.

I'm not sure if I'm going to make a couple more blocks...I could try to do one with say, dark green backgrounds and maybe another with burgundy backgrounds, and then I'd have a nice size lap quilt. As it stands now my thoughts are to stop with what I have and put the blocks away for my yet to be conceived grandchild. Then when I know which gender I could either leave in the very pink princessy block for a girl, or leave it out and add the black block.. I.think I'll mull it over a while and look for more novelties cause novelties make me HAPPY!!

Here are the 4 blocks I finished up over the weekend.

Moving in a clockwise rotation starting at the upper left, we have a red block featuring...

lots of hearts, sunshine-y faces that I think are suppose to be the sun from the old Kellogg's cereal commercials, crazy limbed people... kinda walking funny, buttons, the Chinese characters for courage, peace and love, jacks... I wonder if kids even know what jacks are today, arggh!! pirates, and we finish up with cherries.

Next up a green block which has...

little baby hula girls, strangely patterned frogs, cupcakes, smiling black cats, some of my favorite characters from Peanuts, a cute toy plane, monkeys, and a boy playing soccer.

I've noticed that I've used a lot of older KP Kids prints in these blocks. I LOVE KP Kids but I haven't seen anything new from them in ages. They did the cutest kids and the most adorable pigs. I know I have a thing for chickens but their pigs are just adorable! Years ago I was in Paducah at the big AQS show and  a vendor had a kit with KP Kids pigs dressed up as farmers. I debated whether to buy it and passed on it... and I have kicked myself ever since. It haunts me... the one that got away!!!!  And to this day I figure if I like a fabric I should probably buy some because they will probably not reprint it ... and that is a bit of justification for my novelty stash... if it is cute, a third of a yard isn't going to break me! Boy I went off on a tangent didn't I?

Okay, back to the blocks... onto the purple one...

laundry hanging on a line... Halloweenie laundry, wish I had bought more of this one as I've used it all up, shoes, one of those KP pigs I was talking about,  cats and pink poodles, beach gear, sewing machines, cats/owls/spiders, and adorable smiling lady bugs.

And the final block I made has black backgrounds. My younger son said this is his favorite block...

 a pincushion and sewing bird, musical notes, dachshunds wearing sweaters, balls of yarn, a fudgesicle crazy glasses, a scribbled cat and pizza!

I realize I have a substantial stash of novelty fabric but never fear,  that will not deter me from buying more. I'm always on the lookout for items I don't have... the other week I found an octopus. I was asked the other day how much I buy of fabrics I like, and my go to cut is a third of a yard... 12 inches.  I find it is large enough to cut a good size square from and I get more variety this way. I also have to admit that I'm a regular at Fabric Shack in Waynesville and when I put a stack of bolts on a counter they just look at me and say "a third of a yard, right?" and they always are... LOL!

happy stitching...
carol fun

I never noticed that...

Hope everyone had a lovely 4th of July... I spent mine relaxing and stitching and finished this... Blackbird Designs Easy Morning Read from the book Weekend which you can see here.

My photography doesn't capture the loveliness of this piece... the linen is a peachy color that almost glows...the flosses include Gentle Arts Tennessee Red Clay, Calico Kitty, Cinnamon Toast, and Perfect Piecrust (why am I suddenly hungry?). I started this on Mother's Day and as I am never monogamous with my projects I worked on a few other things since then, but that is a pretty quick completion for me.

This is my favorite section... I did the heart in giant Smyrna crosses instead of Algerian eye stitched (I will NOT do them and you can't make me!)...and I added some French knots for eyes on the birds...who wants blind birds? LOL

So I stitched the whole sampler and it wasn't until the end that I noticed something about this piece that I never noticed before...look at it... what is it missing? Let me know when you see it.

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching and I'll link up tomorrow with SuperMom-No Cape's Vintage Embroidery Monday & Stitchery... you'll see wonderful projects on both to these blogs.

Also if you have time check out the Facebook group Fans of Blackbird Designs and Prim Stitchers Society. You have to ask to join the group to post but as far as I can tell they accept all stitchers...hey, they took me! Great stitching and great inspiration.

And another thing...if you are on Instagram you can check me out there too carolfun53 ... I've just started posting bits and pieces there...lots of times it is works in progress. Everyday I find new people and sites to follow... it is a wonder I get anything done at all!

happy stitching-
carol fun